Pasta alla Carbonara

Do you ever open up Pinterest looking for something specific (a recipe in my case) and just get sucked in to your main feed? You just keep on scrolling through, browsing and happily pinning away, then you glance at the time and a half hour has passed and you realize that you have not accomplished anything.

This happens to me frequently. I have a ton of recipes on Pinterest that I have lined up to try out.  Sometimes I look beforehand so I can get an idea of what I'll need to get at the grocery store, but sometimes I wait until the last minute and then I'm too hungry to pick up anything and need to eat right at that moment. This is when I resort to something quick and easy.

One of my go-to recipes is Carbonara.  I picked this up from my grandma, even I noticed some nights she doesn't feel much like cooking and makes something easy.  This is incredibly simple and the perfect recipe to start out with, especially if you're a new cook.  Also, it's a recipe that include bacon and eggs, who doesn't love bacon and eggs?!

 

Pasta alla Carbonara

Serving size: 2

1/2 lb of pasta (I believe linguine is pictured here, probably because it's what I already had, however I usually use penne for this dish)

4-5 strips of bacon, cut into bite sized pieces (try to find the leanest package)

3-4 eggs, scrambled

1-2 tsp garlic, finely chopped

olive oil

salt

pepper

Start by bringing water to a boil in a medium sized pot and cook your pasta according to their package directions or to "al dente".

Heat up a large skillet and drop the in the bite sized bacon to cook.  I generally like my carbonara to be on the bacon heavy side and for them to be extra cripsy.  When the bacon is almost cooked to your liking, turn the heat down, and add the finely chopped garlic. Cook for 2-3 more minutes.  

By this time, your pasta should be done.  Drain your pasta and dump it into the skillet with the bacon and garlic.  There should be enough bacon grease to act as a kind of "sauce" but I usually end up using a little bit of olive oil just to make not stick together and not to taste dry.

At this time, take your eggs, which should be scrambled in a bowl and seasoned with salt and pepper, pour the raw eggs over the pasta in the skillet and mix around until the eggs have cooked.

The key to this recipe is to have a large and deep enough skillet to contain and mix all the ingredients.  Also, in my personal opinion, the pouring of the raw eggs over the pasta and allowing everything to cook together is what makes this dish. I love when I'm about to eat a penne that has bacon and egg inside of it. 

In this last picture, my boyfriend and I had a salad along with our pasta to lighten it up a little bit. I cannot take credit for the salad though because he made it! He used red leaf lettuce, crumbled goat cheese, and Gala apple slices with some of our favorite vinaigrette!

 

Enjoy!

Vegetarian Wraps with Black Beans, Rice, and Avocado

Hi there! I hope everyone's Fourth of July was wonderful! I had a great time minus the 60+ mosquito bites I got while I was watching the fireworks... Later I found a trick on Pinterest to stop the itching by heating a spoon under hot water and applying pressure to the bite.  Apparently it destroys the protein that causes the reaction. I wish I found that sooner! Instead, I remedied myself by going to the beach this past weekend and had the salt water dry them out... which I'm not complaining about. I love beach days!

Anyway, I have a recipe for you tonight.  I was looking to make a quick dinner one night and I found a recipe for these wraps. I modified it a bit to suit my taste since the original recipe called for onions and I have to say, I am not a fan of raw onions. This recipe is pretty simple and feel free to modify it however you like!

Vegetarian Wraps with Black Beans, Rice, and Avocado

1 cup rice
1 red pepper, green pepper, and/or yellow pepper (seeded and diced)
1 avocado (peeled and diced)
1 can of black beans (rinsed)
about 1 cup of medium spice salsa (or whichever level of spicyness you prefer)
package of soft burrito/taco tortillas 
mexican blend shredded cheese
salt and pepper to taste
*optional: low fat sour cream and salsa on the side

Cook the rice according to package directions. I believe I used Carolina long grain white rice.
Prepare the peppers and black beans. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, saving the avocado for last so it doesn't get too beat up during the mix.

Prepare your tortilla. Spread some sour cream and shredded cheese on your warm tortilla. Take a few spoonfuls of your mixture into the center of the tortilla. Fold the tortilla according to directions on the packaging. In a warm pan lay the wrap seam side down. You can cover the pan with a lid to heat it up and melt the cheese faster.

Enjoy for the next few days! These make perfect leftovers, just make sure the avocado doesn't get too brown.

As a variation, you could opt to leave it without tortilla and serve as a side dish! I did that for my graduation party, everyone loved it!

Hi there!

I'm back!! 

I've been trying to teach myself HTML and website design, however it's a lot harder than I imagined! I'm also torn between two different color schemes for this blog... I might just have to choose one out of a hat or I'll never be able to decide.

I wanted to share some of my plans for this blog because I'm thinking of changing it up a bit. I still love food and I will still be posting lots of recipes I try out and enjoy.  However, I do have other passions in my life that I would like to explore here. 

Food has always been my number one because of how I grew up.  I never ate "children's cereal" as a child and very rarely did I eat fast food or drink soda (usually only if I was with friends).  When I was younger, I used to resent my family for not letting me have the kinds of things all my friends would talk about or be eating for lunch at school.  Remember in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Toula had a flashback to when she was young and all of her school friends would be eating wonderbread sandwiches while she had a thermos of homemade soup from the night before?  That was me.  I had a thermos of soup I brought for lunch... or lamb, or pasta.. you get the idea.  I was Toula.  I used to be embarrassed to eat my lunch when everyone around me was having PB&J sandwiches with the crusts cut off.  Now that I am older, I am thankful that I ate so well growing up because it has influenced how I eat and how I cook for myself now. 

Just recently I had a party with my family and friends to celebrate my college graduation.  My aunts and I all pooled together to make food for this gathering of almost 50 people.  All of my friends that came and ate dinner were raving about how delicious everything was and that they wished the food they were enjoying was their baseline for food quality.  I guess it was naive of me to think, but I had always thought that everyone ate as well as my family does.  I realize now that's not the case and part of the reason I want to share my recipes is because my goal is to inspire others to eat well.

One of my other passions is cosmetics.  I remember when I was younger I would try to get my hands on any makeup products I could, even if it didn't look good on me.  For my 13th birthday, one of my aunts took me to the Clinique counter and bought me a tinted moisturizer, mascara, and lavender eyeshadow.  It was one of the best days of my life; I finally had real makeup!  Since then I've been hooked.  I'm very brand loyal to Clinique, but I do have many different products from many different brands (I probably own way more makeup than I care to admit).  I'm a sucker for YouTube Beauty Gurus and I thought, "Hey, I can do that"!  So I decided until I invest in a quality camera, I will be content with writing beauty and fragrance posts.

Another passion that I intend to explore here is nothing in particular like food or cosmetics, but anything that is lovely in general.  I come across many things I like on Pinterest and even have a board titled "Pretty Things" which can include flowers, jewelry, fashion, lace, and many other girly type of things.

I hope you all are okay with me changing my blog up a bit!  Obviously, this also calls for a name change, but I still haven't thought of one I really like.  Stay posted for that!

Cookie Comfort

 

****In honor of the Fourth of July being well, today as I edit this post, I thought it was appropriate to post something that celebrated America like these All-American Chocolate Chip cookies!****

There's something comforting about walking into a room or a house that smells like cookies baking in the oven.  It's a warm, inviting aroma that entices you to wait until the cookies are cool enough to eat.... and then devour about ten of them.

I decided to make cookies today and I seem to had forgotten about the certain sweet smell of them baking in the oven.  I only did notice the aroma when I ran outside for a quick second and when I walked back into the kitchen--BAM sweet warm smelling chocolate chip cookies in the oven waiting for me to enjoy with a cold glass of milk.

I also had forgotten how difficult it was to make cookies by hand! I couldn't use an electric mixer because the one that I have is on it's last leg and might have spontaneously combusted while using it, so I mixed everything by hand with a wooden spoon!  This might not be so difficult for some people, but I'm a pretty small girl and after adding over two cups of flour, the dough gets pretty tough to mix!

I know there are a ton of chocolate chip cookies recipes out there, but to me, this type of cookie never gets old.  It's a classic cookie that pretty much everyone on the face of the planet loves.  When I make them, I usually use the same two recipes every time, but for whatever reason they come out looking different each time!  This time they are pretty tall and a bit cakey (which I'm not complaining about!).  One recipe I use is from my aunt and the other is from a cookbook called The Cookie Cookbook, which is the recipe I used this time.


All-American Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 pack semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat to 350 F

Mix together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium sized bowl

Cream together butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  Add the flour (I did in 3 segments) to the butter mixture until well blended.  Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop dough about 1/2 in in diameter onto lined cookies sheet (I used parchment paper) and bake for about 12-14 minutes or until golden looking.  Transfer to a cooling rack (or onto another piece of parchment paper) and enjoy once cool enough to eat!

Spinach and Cheese Casserole

So, this isn't really a casserole (I don't even know what a casserole actually consists of), but ever since I can remember my grandmother has called this baked ziti dish "casserole".  I didn't really care what she called it when she made it though, because baked pasta is an absolute favorite of mine!

Normally, she just uses ricotta, mozzarella, and pasta as the main ingredients, but I decided to add some spinach in because I love it (and I also had some left over in the freezer).

 

Ingredients

1 small pack frozen spinach (thawed)

1 box pasta of your choice (I used penne)

1 small carton of fat free ricotta

about 6 slices of part skim mozzarella

olive oil

salt

pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Bring a pot of water to boil to cook the pasta in (add salt obviously).  Cook just under al dente.  In a baking dish, drizzle some olive oil to coat the dish to prevent the pasta from sticking.

In a large bowl combine the spinach, ricotta, cooked pasta, and a dash of pepper.  You can use more salt at your discretion, I used just a bit to salt the spinach and ricotta.  Mix together then transfer into the baking dish.  Drizzle with more oil (as it serves as a kind of make-shift sauce) and place the slices of mozzarella on top. Bake in the over for about 15-20 minutes or until the cheese has melted and started to crisp.

Enjoy!!

Stay in Chinese Food: Orange Teriyaki Chicken and Fried Rice

Hey everyone!  I love chinese food but even if it's usually super cheap, I just can't afford it whenever I want it on a college budget.  SOO I found these recipes that are almost as good as the real thing.  On the menu:  Orange Teriyaki Chicken with Fried Rice.

 

And here's how to make it!! 

Orange Teriyaki Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 tablespoon ginger
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons orange marmalade
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon honey
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 1/4 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite sized pieces

Sauce:  over medium heat, add the olive oil.  Next add the ginger, orange zest, and garlic.  The original recipe calls for fresh ginger, but I didn't have any on hand so I just used ground ginger from a container.  If you do this too, make sure you use less than what the original recipe says, otherwise it'll have too strong a ginger taste. 

Cook for about 1-2 minutes while stirring.  Add the rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, orange marmalade, orange juice, honey, and pepper flakes.  I didn't really measure out a pinch for that either. I just sprinkled until I thought it was spicy enough.  Bring to a simmer and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes to thicken the sauce.  Separate half of the sauce into another bowl to serve with cooked chicken.

Here's what the sauce looked like when done:

Unfortunately, I don't have a grill... so I settled for the good old George Foreman counter grill haha.  

 

Place the chicken on the grill and brush the sauce once the pieces have started to cook, turning over every few minutes.  I added more sauce every time I turned the pieces also, trying to get them extra yummy.  Depending on how thick the pieces are, they should take about 5 minutes.

Here they are finished:

Fried Rice Recipe 

Ingredients (mine were lacking from the original recipe because I didn't have some ingredients)

3 cups cooked white rice (translates to 1 cup uncooked rice)

3 tbs sesame oil

1 cup frozen peas and corn (defrosted)

2 tsp minced garlic

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/4 cup soy sauce

 

On medium-high heat, heat the sesame oil in a large pan.  Add the vegetables and garlic and fry until tender.  

 

Lower the heat to about medium and add the eggs.  

 

Scramble the eggs until cooked

Add the rice and soy sauce and mix together well.  Keep this on the fire until it is thoroughly heated.

Next time I make this rice, I'll edit to include everything else I use... bean sprouts and baby corn perhaps?  Those are my favorites!

 

Orange Teriyaki Chicken Original Recipe 

Original Fried Rice Recipe 

 

Update and Sopapilla Cheesecake

Happy first day of August!! I've been a flake again, I apologize.... but not to worry! I've made lots of things so expect to see several updates coming from me this week!

First order of business, do you like my new background/banner?! I did it last night when I should have been working on my paper, but I found the background and just needed to change it right then.  It's not pink, but I still really like it.  Damask is one of my favorite patterns!

Second, has anyone been watching the Olympics? Because I have been watching them like it's my job.  I teared up twice yesterday when I watched the fab five won gold, once live in the morning and again in the evening for the rerun.  Oh and again when the Brits won their first gold by the rowing girls.  Good grief.

Now on to the dessert....

Quite possibly the easiest adaptation of cheesecake ever created: the Sopapilla Cheesecake!  yum yum just look at those, I wish I still had some!

Ingredients

2 cans of Pillsbury crescent rolls

2 8oz Neufchâtel cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup butter

Cinnamon and sugar, to sprinkle

Preheat to 350 degrees F

I bought the rolls that came out in strips, so what I did was stretched the strips out both length and width wise of one can of rolls and pressed them together (as to not leave any gaps between strips) on to an ungreased pan.  I couldn't tell you what the exact measurements of this pan are but my guess is 9x13.  Then, combine the cheese, sugar, and vanilla in a separate bowl.  

I used Neufchâtel cheese because it's 1/3 less the fat of regular cream cheese, but when I was in the store the other day I noticed that the reduced fat cream cheese is 1/2 the fat. So next time I'm just going to used the low fat cream cheese, you could use either though.  Neufchâtel cheese tastes almost exactly the same as cream cheese and no one noticed when I served them this cheesecake ;)

 

 Spread the mixture over the over the dough strips

 

Unroll the second can of crescent rolls over the cream cheese mixture using the same procedure to stretch it out as before.  Melt the bit of butter and spread over top and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar.  I didn't do this part by measurement, just sprinkled what I thought was enough.  It looks like a lot of sugar in the before photo but it came out perfect.

 

Bake at 350 degree F for 20-30 minutes.  You can also tell when it looks done.  The dough looks cripsy and not squishy like before.  I must tell you that this smelled absolutely irresistible.  Even while it was in the oven, I wish my house smelled like these all day long.

Original Recipe